How individuals who are blind locate targets

How do individuals who are blind locate, for example, the ‘@’ in an email address, the black king on a chessboard or their own house on a map? To locate information in peri-personal (non-rotated) tabletop space is a two-phase process: Phase 1 is to detect and identify the target; Phase 2 is to discover its position. This study investigated the relationship between Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the location process. A total of 23 individuals who are blind participated. Their accuracy in Phase 2 was affected by what strategy they had adopted in Phase 1; their location time was not. Three location strategies were identified in Phase 2 – the routing strategy, the global view strategy, and the touch vision strategy: the location time and accuracy not affected by which strategy had been adopted. 50% adopted the same strategy for ranking (Phase 1) target-discriminating features and (Phase 2) target-locating cues in order of importance.

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